The Brendan Sorsby Odyssey: A Story With No Heroes

Brendan Sorsby’s story reads like a Greek odyssey, a cautionary tale full of endless twists and turns, and just when you think the protagonist will succeed, the antagonist puts up another valiant effort. So, the odyssey continues.

Sorsby’s determined attempt to find a way in a world that has more rules and sanctions than anyone could truly imagine, has turned his tale into one where you feel there are no heroes and unsure of who the villain really is.

When Brendan Sorsby left the Cincinnati Bear Cats to play at Texas Tech; it should have been simple enough to make that transition. That is, after all, what college football is nowadays. One transition after another. Or maybe, one transaction after another. Then Cincinnati sued Sorsby, stating that he breached his contract when he left by not paying his one million dollars exit fee.

What could have stopped there as merely another domino in the college sports world, turned completely upside down when Sorsby was going to be checking into a gambling addiction program, due to him making several online bets, some of them on his own team.

Then so begins the odyssey.

Injunctions, college eligibility, over 90,000 dollars spent on bets against his own team of Indiana, where he first played; trying to enter a supplemental draft that the NFL decided not to even hold and then the CFL saying Sorsby would be not allowed to enter their league at all.

Does it end here? The simple answer is no. The same can be said for why this story fascinates so many. The simple answer is because of the constant plot twists and that it happens to be summer. Summer is a season where headlines are curated, not given.

But there’s something that is worthy of conversation. Not that Brendan Sorsby has tried to find a way in a place that is determined to give him no way, but that Brendan Sorsby’s tale is really a story about how colluded college football has gotten. The hypocrisy of a sport that has completely lost itself in the latter part of this decade. Will Brendan Sorsby be the last person that will ever bet on a sports team? No. Will Brendan Sorsby be the last person to commit some type of violation by transferring from one team to another? No. This is something that happens regularly. Happens often, to be exact.

Did the NBA not just have a gambling scandal to start their season? Does the NFL not have numerous players that have been suspended due to gambling? Gambling is not something new. Not something that just happened yesterday. The hypocrisy of it is that all these leagues promote gambling in between commercials or even within the game. And the hypocrisy of college football to draw any line on anything is nothing short of ludicrous. And that is not hyperbolic to say. A league once warped in making money off its players has now allowed image and likeness to dominate the narrative. A league full of coaches that sign multi-million-dollar contracts and vow loyalty and then quit after a few seasons to chase another multi-million-dollar contract. A league that excuses players’ and coaches’ bad behaviors and then forces itself to be banded by those bad actions. And most importantly a league that each year discusses expanding its playoff system, not necessarily for more teams to be able to compete but because a university runs like a Fortune 500 company. An evolving machine of cash. The world of college football is currently riding a pendulum that bangs incessantly.

In that, is hypocrisy. What Brendan Sorsby did was incomprehensible. Addictions clearly cloud any reasonable judgements. For a judge in early June to file a preliminary injunction to prevent the NCAA from punishing Sorsby for his actions, clearing his way to play in 2026 may have been a scrutinized decision but the truth of the matter is, Brendan Sorsby should never have gotten to that moment. He should never have gotten to Texas Tech in the first place. When Cincinnati sued him for the breach, a question should have been raised. A broader question. Why has the NCAA made it so easy to walk away from one team after another?

What is the point of a high school player making a commitment to a university when verbal commitments don’t mean much these days? Why would a quarterback like Sorsby want to make all these moves in the first place? Three schools in a college football career? This is not Kevin Durant in the NBA. This is a college kid making one choice after another and at the same time, incessantly gambling (unbeknownst to everyone, apparently).

The NCAA allowing their league to turn into transactions has left the league in nothing short of turmoil. A league can have transactions but being defined by it…

Brendan Sorsby’s story heeds a warning. Gambling will most likely spiral out of control, if done irresponsibly. They say that in commercials, in so many words. A quarterback betting on his own team is equally irresponsible. Any player, for that matter. Trying to enter a draft that isn’t even really happening is also an unwise decision. But truthfully, Sorsby was probably trying to find another way out. His college career is now marred by his poor choices. A fresh start could be all he could ask for. Entering a supplemental draft, though, would not have been much of a fresh start. If a NFL team had taken a chance on him, would he have been a starting quarterback on week one? Possibly. But what type of team would have taken that chance? If anything, his best hope would have been to be merely on a team.

Who’s to say that being on that team would not have been a distraction? Imagine the New York Jets drafting Sorsby. The metropolitan area would have feasted on the addition. So yes, Sorsby wanted a way out. But he didn’t get one.

The NCAA wanted a way out. Brendan Sorsby wanted a way out. The NFL just didn’t want a way in. And the CFL said there was no way to begin with. Everybody wants to escape from this situation without any more damage being done.

The damage is done, though.

Brendan Sorsby made poor choices that upended his college football career. If he returns, the damage is already done. The NCAA wanted to rid themselves of this tale with a collapsing ground to stand on. Yes, punishing Sorsby was warranted but the NCAA constantly finds itself at the forefront of one scandal after another. It took three seasons to determine if the University of Michigan had benefited from stolen signs. And nobody still really knows. Lane Kiffen left a promising program at Ole Miss to coach at LSU and then proceeded to destroy every good narrative he had gained at Ole Miss. The top 25 feels laughable when multiple teams still end up on the outside looking in. A three loss SEC team always finds a way in and then everything is up for scrutiny. The endless barrage of bowl games reads like hearing the same story repeatedly. Putting five-win teams in a bowl game no longer moves the needle like it used to. But did it ever?

The NCAA has had plenty of damage done to its brand. The Sorsby scandal has now just contributed to that.

So here we are. Trapiezing through the summer, reading an odyssey and not finding one hero in it. Don’t we all hate stories like that? Every story beckons for someone that you can root for. Someone that you hope can vanquish all the evil doings and come out on the good side of things. It sounds like a fairytale. And normally fairytales end with “And they all lived happily ever after.”

Does this story end with a happily ever after? Is someone going to come in and save the day? Make everything better?

Unfortunately, probably not. Where Brendan Sorsby goes from here is anyone’s guess. One thing will then just follow another.

When the college football season begins, there will be plenty of glamour and grandeur. The stadiums will be full. The broadcasts will run on every available channel. The season will start and life will go on. In ten years, Brendan Sorsby’s story may be an odyssey shelved in some back corners of a dusty NCAA library. But if someone would open it and read it again…, what would they feel at the end? Sadness? Disappointment? Neutrality?

Perhaps, grief. This story truly represents so much loss.

And those stories don’t have winners or heroes.

Just loss.